Phantom Data issues on your Windows Phone? Give these tips a try!

There have been reports since Windows Phone 7 was released of high data consumption (Phantom Data Usage) when users are not using the phones at all.

The complaints from users are that they are seeing an average of 2MB+ and in some cases over 50MB+ of extra data consumption, daily. If you are on a 200MB Data Plan this will easily eat up available data usage and dig chunks out of the larger plans.

According to BBC News, Microsoft is investigating the problem to determine the root cause. There has been a lot of speculation as to what the root cause may be, the largest complaint being the Windows Phone 7 Feedback option, which should be disabled by default.

I decided to do a little research on the subject to see what users are saying and these are some of the reported tips I have come across that have seemed to help some.

Disable the Windows Feedback Option. Check it every so often to make sure it hasn’t enabled itself.

If you are using WiFi, make sure to disable the Cellular connection. If you are on Battery Mode and your phone goes sleep, make sure if it disconnects the WiFi that it isn’t reconnecting Cellular.

In your Pictures and Camera Settings, make sure Auto Upload to Skydrive is not enabled.

If you have apps like Yahoo Mail (another app that is largely being blamed as the culprit), Facebook, Twitter, check the Data syncing options to see how much data consumption they use.

One tip from a user on the Howard Forums is to disable data and leave your phone on 3G while anywhere with WiFi. You can still get calls and texts, but no data is used on your plan. When your own the move and need data re enable it.

Hopefully Microsoft will get the problem resolved quickly or at least narrow down the major culprit/s.

More information can be found on the MSDN Windows Phone 7 Forums.

If you have any other apps you have seen using up data feel free to share them in the comments.

The author, Lee Whittington, loves to use his learned talents to write software as a hobby. He also also enjoys playing with Photoshop and is a serious Windows, Software, Gadgets & a Tech news buff. Lee has studied Visual Basic, C++ and Networking.